The 7 Steps to Conquer your Social Media Habits

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We all know social media can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, it provides wonderful connectivity with your social circle. On the other, perhaps too much time was spent aimlessly scrolling the feeds.

You've decided that it's time you beat your bad social media habits. I commend you for that. Here I share with you the real way to control your social media use. It is not easy and there is no real quick fix, but there is a definite path to success.

1.?Find Your Why

If you are reading this post then you have recognized your social media habits are not where you want them. That is good. I found that being honest with myself was the first step towards improvement.

The most powerful motivator that led me to cut back on social media was recognizing?why?I wanted this. Ask yourself, why do you want to reduce your time spent on social media?

I wanted to cut back because I was in a cycle of feeling unsatisfied and anxious. Whatever that thing is for you, find it, and don't let it go. That?why?will serve as your biggest companion in committing to real change.

You may be asking, why is my?why?important? Why don't I just follow some simple tips instead? Well, allow me to explain.

In the beginning, it was easy to cut back on my social media use. I was amped up on ambition and ready to beat my habit. Well, a few weeks later I learned the hard part was keeping my word.

Just like the old saying goes, it is a marathon, not a sprint. There were little moments where I'd say "I'm just gonna check my friend's feeds then get off." Well, I continued to use thoughts like this as an excuse to get on social media.

Looking back, I now know that it was these moments that mattered most. And the way I beat these impulses was by remembering?why?I wanted to cut back in the first place. It wasn't easy, but luckily there is a technique I am about to share with you in step 2 to reinforce your?why.

Application:?Find the reasons you desire to cut back on social media. These serve as the foundation of your motivation to change.

2.?Visualize Your... Failure?!

Some people will tell you to visualize your success for motivation–you picture yourself happy and in control. Well, I will tell you that the biggest factor that led to my success in conquering my impulses was visualizing failure.

In those moments when I wanted to log on to the app, I told myself to remember my?why?for cutting back. Well, that was not enough to put my impulses to rest. I needed to make it more powerful and motivating.

The trick was imagining what life would look like if I couldn't break my habit. Well, I would still be scrolling socials 4+ hours a day, still feeling unsatisfied, depressed, even. I would still be anxious in front of others and generally feel like a loser.

The thought of living the rest of my life feeling this way terrified me. Once I was able to visualize the full ramifications of my excessive social media use, I got a strong reminder of just how important it was that I reject my craving.

In times of struggle with your social media use, perform the following exercise:

Application:?Close your eyes, and envision that you fail horribly at getting over your habit. Imagine what this failure looks like in the long term. Focus on how you feel during this failure. Is your heart beating? Is your adrenaline pumping? Sense your disappointment. Let it serve as fuel.

3.?Reinforce Your Aim

With the hustle and bustle of everyday life, it can be easy to lose sight of your goal. There were many times when I was so focused on getting to school or going to work that I would completely forget about my resolution.

For the last 5 months, I have been taking advantage of visual reminders and I wish I knew about their power when I was cutting back on social media.

Visual reminders are a highly effective way to reinforce yourself to change. There is something about seeing your goal that makes it feel more concrete and present.

There is no wrong way to go about this as long as you are reminded of social media. Some examples are using a sticky note with a message, or a printed image that relates to social media.

Another small but effective idea is to put your social media apps in a folder on your phone and give it a name like "spend less time" or "evil dopamine buttons."

If you like to go all out or enjoy creativity, I highly recommend?creating a vision board?and adding your social media reminder to it. While it may not seem like much, it has had profound effects on my willpower.

For best results, I recommend putting your visual cue somewhere you will see it when you wake up and go to sleep, like near your bed or bathroom sink. This puts your resolution at the forefront of your mind.

Application:?Create a visual reminder to cut back on social media. It can be anything you'd like. Place it in a spot where you will see it often.

4.?Narrow the Window

The times we are most susceptible to useless social media scrolling are early in the morning before our day "has started," and before bed when our day "is over."

These times in our day are critical markers for our circadian rhythm, which regulates our sleep cycle. If you struggle with your social media use, chances are you have a hard time getting a good night's sleep.

Your brain stays engaged when on your phone and the screen light disrupts sleep patterns. To remedy this, avoid your phone entirely for the first hour of your morning, and your last hour before bed.

You would be shocked at how effective this one habit can transform your quality of life. You will experience increased energy levels throughout your day, and your head will hit the pillow faster.

A common recommendation is to leave your phone outside of the bedroom. This will certainly help you avoid social media before bed, but it is impractical in the long run.

It misses the point of this exercise and is mildly inconvenient. The goal is to conquer your habits, so keeping your phone in the room should not be an issue once you learn to control your impulses.

Application:?Refrain from using your phone for the first and last hour of your day. This will improve your quality of sleep and limit your opportunities to mindlessly scroll your device.

5.?Trim the Fat

How many notifications do you get a day? And how many are necessary? Social media apps are selective with their notifications at first, but they are designed to increasingly send you more as you use their platform.

Upon doing a thorough review of my notification settings across all platforms, all of them were sending me promotions, posts from friends of a friend, and live video notices.

When I unselected the useless notifications, I cut my daily notifications from about 140 to 60. I was surprised to learn how dramatic this decrease was. If you want to view your notification statistics, they are found in screen time on the settings app.

To take this a step further, unfollow all accounts that are uninformative and useless to your network. I think we are all victims of following useless meme accounts or following loose acquaintances to get our numbers up.

This will help clean up your feed and keep it more productive. The primary function of social media is to stay in contact with your circle. By trimming the fat, we can focus our attention on the best parts of social media.

Application:?Review your notification settings for all apps and disable useless preferences. Additionally, unfollow accounts that are not a part of your social circle.

6.?Stay on Track

Tracking your progress is an important step in the process. Seeing visible improvement in your journey can be reassuring and help you stay motivated to reach your goal.

A great way to see how you are doing is by checking your screen time analysis on your phone. Normally, this would be pretty inconvenient since it is found deep in the settings app. Luckily, there is a great workaround to this issue.

I recommend you take advantage of the screen time widget on your home screen. A widget shows information from the selected app. This can be set up to display how long you are on your phone each day with a breakdown of each app.

Apple phones use the "screen time" setting, while Android phones use the "Digital Wellbeing" feature. Both of these are found in the settings apps. Here is a guide to setting up the?screen time widget for iPhone?and a tutorial on using the?Digital Wellbeing widget for Android.

Another additional feature of both of these apps is setting limits to how long you can use your social media apps each day. Some people find this feature helpful, but I found it ineffective in reducing my social media habits.

Application:?Set up screen time widgets to track your time spent on social media. Put the widget on your home screen so you see it every time you unlock your phone. Click the widget regularly to check your progress.

7.?Beat It for Good

When I cut back on social media, I found myself bored in "filler moments." For instance, I would sit on the toilet and be tempted to scroll through my feed.

For a while, I thought there was no way I could continue practicing this new habit. I was simply too bored too often and felt that social media was the only solution.

Initially, I thought boredom was a waste of my time. I thought I had better things to do. It turns out that boredom was exactly what I needed in my life.

When I was bored, I found myself thinking a lot more. I was more aware of myself and others, I felt a creativity boost, and my work ethic increased. These moments grounded my thoughts and emotions back to my baseline.

I am sure you have heard of having a "shower thought." That is exactly what occurs when you are bored. When our minds are left to their own devices, not being constantly stimulated, they can do incredible things all on their own.

It may sound counterintuitive, but you should embrace that boredom. Make it your ally, not your enemy. Once you understand this, you will successfully conquer your tendency to waste time on social media.

Application:?You will be bored in filler moments when you stop scrolling social media. Make this boredom your friend. You will find?widespread benefits?in letting your mind step away from the constant stimulus.

My Experience with Social Media

Upon entering high school, I saw most other students using social media. I figured that the only way to have a good social life was to do the same thing.

So, I downloaded Snapchat and added my classmates. Soon, it became the center of my interactions with people. I felt cool and popular as I started to build message "streaks" with people, meaning we messaged at least once daily.

I started to correlate the length of my streaks to my friendships with people. I soon believed that the way to attract girls was to keep streaks with them.

I developed insecurities about my looks and facial expressions, causing me to retake photos to make sure everything I sent was "perfect."

I liked that it was easy to control the social environment online. I could take my time to think of the "perfect" response or curate my "ideal" photo.

Ironically, I became less social the more I used social media. You can't control your expressions or responses in the real world. I was worried people wouldn't accept my "flawed" version.

I developed intense anxiety around this idea. Soon enough, I decided it wasn't worth the risk of going outside to socialize. So instead, I mostly stayed in my room and on my phone.

It is hard for me to put into words how liberating it was to reduce my time on social media. I would go as far as to say that it was life-changing.

I don't think social media is all bad, it has great networking applications and is a solid platform for your personal brand. However, it is important to manage how you use it.

The really important takeaway from all this is to value your time. As the saying goes, "Time is the most valuable currency in the world–you can never buy it back." Choose what you spend it on wisely.